I’m being a little dramatic with the title for shock value, but did think that there is a collective malaise among the Big East voting coaching block in regards to Marquette this season. The choices individually are defensible, but collectively seem less so.
Kam Left Off Every All-Big East Team
Last season, as Marquette ran away with the regular season Big East crown, Kam Jones’ was rightfully rewarded with a 2nd team All-Big East nod after a fantastic campaign.
This season, as Marquette finished tied for 2nd, Kam Jones’ was significantly better than last season, and yet didn’t even garner an honorable mention. What gives?
In fact, it wasn’t just tremendous by 2024 individual season standards, it was historically impressive. Using TRank, I filtered all Big East player since 2008 that have finished the season with an ORtg over 120, with a usage over 24% and at least 60% of minutes. These aren’t random selections meant to make Kam look good, either.
Being able to to put up all-American level offensive efficiency while playing heavy minutes and carrying a big part of the offensive load is not a common feat. The results that populated bear that out.
Only 8 Big East players have ever been this efficient on that high a usage over the course of a season. Of those 8, 5 of them won Big East Player of The Year that season, highlighted below. Another, Sanogo, was the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament. The other 2 are Marquette snubs that didn’t even make an All-League honorable mention.
Now, this isn’t to say I believe Kam should be BEPOY or that he was robbed of being on the 1st Team. Kam was the 3rd best player and had a deep lull for a part of the season that clouded the perception of his play. A heater at the end of the season took good numbers into another stratosphere.
But he wasn’t just hot since coming back from injury on February 3. He was best player in the world incredible. Check out the top-10 ORtgs since that date across all high majors, minimum 50% of minutes played and 24% usage. Kam was almost 14 points better than the consensus player of the year, Zach Edey. And 10 games is almost 1/3rd of the season, so not just a blip.
The ORtg gap between Kam and Edey in 2nd is bigger than the gap between Edey and RJ Davis at 29th.
One last time, Kam Jones had a season as a whole that in different years would have him in the conversation to be the MVP. He was significantly better than his 2023 season. That the Big East coaches couldn’t get him on an honorable mention team is laughably ignorant.
Tyler Kolek BEPOY
Once the announcement came that Tyler Kolek would miss the final 3 games of the regular season with an oblique injury, the chances of repeating as BEPOY went down to 0. Either MU would have a worse positioning, or they would shock the world and “devalue” Kolek’s contributions.
And on Wednesday, the league made it official that Kolek was not voted as the player of the year, and Providence’s Devin Carter was.
But despite missing the last 3 games, Kolek’s case was as strong as it was last season, and he did merit the honors.
Often times we only hear about points in the way people like to site points per game. Assists are nice, but not revered in the same sense. And that’s wrong.
Using Synergy’s points created metric, which not only assigns points to assists, but also passes that lead directly to points via free throws, Kolek’s offensive value is put in stark perspective. And no one in the Big East, again, came close to putting up the raw volume Kolek did, let alone the per game average.
Since the reformation in 2013, only 23 Big East players have hit the 1,000 points-created mark in Synergy’s database. 7 of them have gone on to be named BEPOYs (highlighted). Kolek currently has the 5th best average pts created mark per game.
Take a look at that list again, Kolek is in rare scorer’s air once you account for the points his passes provide.
Then you add in the all-world performances he had when Marquette needed him most against Villanova and then St. John’s a few games later. Oh, and Marquette’s defense takes a fairly big tumble when he’s not on the floor either.
Kolek is unfairly bucketed as a pass only guy. But even among pass first peeps, the Big East hasn’t seen the likes of his combination of scoring efficiency and passing.
So no, I did not expect him to win, but he was a better version of his BEPOY winning self, and that bears mentioning.
Oso/Stevie DPOY
I made a long case for Stevie ad DPOY, so feel free to check that out, but I’ll keep Oso’s case short.
With Oso on the court, Marquette has an elite defense, top-5 in the country. Without him, Marquette struggles to stay in the top-200. No one means more for their team on defense than Oso.
As I said in the beginning, I don’t think there’s anything nefarious about the selections and outside of Kam, it’s not necessarily indefensible. But if Marquette needed a chip on their collective shoulder, the Big East coaches have provided one heck of a motivating tool for Shaka.
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